Research - Timing

Interesting post thanks to Penny,  previous web banners from animation mentor, they have priceless information on animation tips for timing, an area I need to work on quite alot.

I picked up a few notes and screenshots from the webanner for future reference:

MY NOTES

Timing – how long it takes something to happen or not happen

Spaceing frame by frame displacements of moving elements within a certain time

24 frames = 1 sec

Basic timing

More frames = more slower movements

Less frames = faster movements

Basic spacing

Different spacing dependants the speed of the object – fast in slow out

Slow in slow out

Think of a car – start at 5mph, accelerate to 20mph to 50mph

More breakdowns are located at the beginning of the animation and the end with spacing in-between. 

Anticipation – robots movie, strong poses determine strong antipation – hold a pose for at least a second to achieve strong anticipation – remember this when working on mime poses, especially the introduction

Overshoot – after effects of the sudden stop

when a character or parts of him pass the final pose then settle back into it.

Overshoot in the graph editor: first a line up, over the key poses key frame , then back down to the key frame.  Put a key before the key pose and lift it higher than the keypose.

Consider materials. Toy story: Woody’s head is plastic but the body is cloth so there is overshoot in the head.

Weight: through time and space you can determine how light or heavy something is.

Bouncing ball:

Add more inbetweens makes a ball appear lighter and less frames to make a ball appear heavier. Use the tangents on the graph editor and lengthen for more air time and make them shorter for less.

Feeling

By varying you timing and spacing you can create feeling & mood

Ball bouncing: By varying one of the arcs of the ball, making it higher than the rest, creates an unexspected move, makes it feel playful.

Second ball the keys are tighter, timing is close together making the ball feel like it is in a rush no time to play around mess about.

Spacing the keys

Spacing the keys at the end gives the feeling of anger, he slams his hand down but before that he there are more keys in the arc.

http://www.animationmentor.com/webinar/timing-and-spacing-webinar/

All the principles covered are show in  this final animation.  We have the playful bounce over the box, the anticipation before the last box, the timeing switches to a faster paced with few keys in the spacing giving the feeling of the personality change in the ball, this ones serious. Then the ball collides with the wall, pausing on that one key pose for just under a second and drops with one frame, indicating its dead, or knocked out. Renember Ed Hooks: when something is dead, it doesn’t move at all we are alive because we move, act react.